Out of the blue, I can't restart or shutdown my mac from the Apple menu (though I can put it to sleep). To restart or shutdown, I have to go back to the login window and do it that way.
I been seeing reports of this problem a lot lately. One thing that used to cause a failure to shutdown was MirrorAgent, the automatic dotMac sync program, although I think they may have gotten it fixed. Generally if something is running that refuses to stop it can foul up shutdown. Try launching Activity Monitor from your /Applications/Utilities folder, show all processes, then click on the column header for "Process ID" to arrange in numeric order. Quit all your programs except Activity Monitor, and take a look to see what is still running that has a higher number than the Finder. Anything that is could be the culprit. Items that do not have a little icon are system processes. There should be two mdimports running plus mds (these are all Spotlight goodies) that launch after the Finder starts running. Try quitting anything else--Activity Monitor includes pmTool so don't quit them. You can quit by selecting the item, then click the Quit Process icon. After you've quit everything else, go ahead and quit AM normally and try to shutdown.
There are many reasons to become unable shutting down or restarting from Apple Menu. Some were explained by other posters.
Most importantly,
loginwindow (the parent process is
launchd.) close out the user session, continue to set the device permissions and user preferences to their defaults in a restart action, or the process power off the system in a shutdown action. However, the issue proves that somewhere in those routines cannot be performed.
Users authentication system seems to be intact because you can restart or shutdown from the login window. However, the admin account authenticated by the Tiger security systems could confuse somehow and affect
loginwindow process for setting up the user environment. This may result in interfering with the process for the shutdown and restart mentioned above.
Test if you can shutdown from the keyboard-- Holding down control
optioncommand keys, and then press the eject key.
Check if the
loginwindow plists are corrupted. To do this test, remove the followings to temporary folders on the desktop, and shutdown from the keyboard shortcut combination. Restart the computer to test the recurrence.
Try disabling Login Items for third-party applications via the Accounts system preference, if any.
Verify whether any third-party kernel extensions (including device drivers) interfere with the
loginwindow hooks process-- Start up with a Safe-mode, then test the Restart from Apple Menu to see whether it works. Also, boot into a Single-user mode, and test if "reboot" command is available from the BSD layer. The I/O Kit API for software developers provides a shutdown hook so that ".kext" troubleshooting may need to be considered. Besides, some bad programmed extension may not be unloaded automatically at a shutdown or restart.
If the computer is configured with Irish language Input method and/or third-party Irish keyboard, try disabling them to test.
A third-party application or custom script may interfere with the
loginwindow hooks for the Shut Down or Restart. For example, if you install an application that prevents casually powering down a system, the Shut Down and Restart buttons may not work. Also, if you install a P2P file sharing application, try uninstalling it.
As last resorts, troubleshoot a bad RAM and consider "Erase and Install" solution.
OPTION:
Post a part of system.log that indicates events from "localhost kernel[0]: standard timeslicing quantum is 10000 us" to the next same line.
This may help to narrow down because restarting or shutting down the system process can initiate the procedure programmatically by sending an appropriate Apple event to Mac OS X Tiger's system process (
loginwindow).
Likewise, check console.log whether any failures is reported.
Most importantly, the
loginwindow (the parent process is
launchd.) close out the user session, continue to set the device permissions and user preferences to their defaults in a restart action, or the process power off the system in a shutdown action.
However, the admin account authenticated by the Tiger security systems could confuse somehow and it may impact on the
loginwindow process for setting up the user environment. This may result in interfering with the process for the shutdown and restart as mentioned above.
Addendum:
If you post a copy of system.log, consider to edit the Ethernet interface ID to a fake value.
what can I say! When I saw 'com.apple.loginwindow.plist' I became very hopeful because I didn't know there was a loginwindow plist. And when I trashed them all was well again! I can now shut down & restart my computer from the Apple Menu. Thank you so much!
For info for anyone else who was following the thread: I wasn't able to use the keyboard to shut down either.
I did try all of the other solutions offered by other posters, and thanks to them too for all the help.
The shutdown keyboard shorcut worked, amazingly fast. After I deleted the two loginwindow plists, shutdown from the Apple menu was restored. I did have to reset auto login in the system preferences, however. Thanks for the tips.
Tried the same simple technique with instant success after several frustrating months. Thank you Fumiaki Kawashima for your simple and straightforward imstructions.
I have had this problem for a while now. It followed my migrations from two iBooks to this MacBookPro. The QuickBack files mentioned above were transferred to each computer during those migrations.
Thanks a million for posting the filename(s) to search for! I deleted them and now I am back to normal operations.
Not being able to Shut Down or Restart propperly is not only a pain but potentially damaging. It was really unnerving when I switch to WIndows XP via BootCamp. Showing someone a new MacBook and it not Shutting Down or Restarting properly is bad PR for Apple IMO. Now I feel better and my computer is too.
Thanks for the great threads and posts here on Apple Discussions!
